The attempts of mining giant Vedanta to pick up majority stake in Cairn India Ltd. has met fresh obstacle as public sector oil and gas behemoth ONGC announced, Cairn Energy Plc requires its consent besides government approvals for selling its stake in Cairn India to Vedanta Resources.

Sighting various clauses of agreement between itself, Cairn Energy Plc. and government ONGC affirmed its pre-emptive rights in relation to Cairn’s participating interest in its Indian subsidiary.

ONGC asked Cairn Energy Plc to provide full details of the agreements between Cairn Energy Plc and its affiliates with the buyer and its affiliates.

Informing the bourses, ONGC’s company secretary N K Sinha said, “ONGC has examined the relevant agreement signed by Cairn Energy Plc and its affiliates with the government of India and inter-se with ONGC as one of the participating company (ies) in the various oil blocks/fields and other related documents.”

Cairn Energy had last Friday responded to a government request for information on the deal. Through a letter, the company “introduced” the Anil Agarwal group and presented details of the deal to the ministry of petroleum and natural gas.

The proposed deal, which could see the Vedanta group spending up to $9.6 billion to acquire 51-60 per cent in Cairn India through group companies Sesa Goa and Vedanta Resources, has not gone down well with ONGC — a partner with Cairn India in all its three producing blocks besides five others.

Cairn India has 10 blocks in India, including the Barmer block in Rajasthan, which has added around 18 per cent to India’s crude oil production of 674,000 barrels a day. ONGC has 30 per cent participating interest in the block but pays the entire royalty amount on the production.

Sesa Goa has come out with an open offer to acquire up to 20 per cent shares in Cairn India through the market on behalf of Vedanta. The open offer will begin on October 11.

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• ONGC seeks Vedanta’s credentials in oil and gas field
• Cairn claims ONGC has no preemptive rights
• Govt and Cairn differ on Vedanta deal: Sundershan
• Open offer for Cairn opens on 11 October
• Sesa Goa buys 1.5 per cent more in Cairn India